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  <title>Description of the Old English Introduction</title>
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     <div id="header"><h2 style="margin-right: 1.5em;">Description of the <span
style="font-style: italic;">OE Introduction</span> & indices</h2></div>
     <div id="text">
       <P><font face="arial" size="+1">
       <a href="char4oei.html">Table 1</a>: an index of the 4 parts of the Introduction.<br> 
       <a href="char5oei.html">Table 2</a>: canon finder; links each canon to itsmanuscript.<br> 
       <a href="char3oei.html">Table 3</a>: Latin sources for parallels for each part<p>

Following a guide to the text's <a href="txhdoei.html#form">form and content</a>, you will find a list of <a href="txhdoei.html#manuscripts">manuscripts</a>, a discussion of <a href="
       txhdoei.html#date">date and sources</a>, and a <a href="txhdoei.html#bib">bibliography</a>.
     
       </p><br/>
       <h3 style="font-size: 20pt; color: #626C9B; font-weight: bold; position: relative; top: -1em; letter-spacing: .10em; width: 100%; border-bottom: double 3px #626C9B; "><a name="form">Form and Content</a></h3>

      <P><font face="arial" size="+1">
         The 
         <span style="font-weight: bold;">OE Introduction</span> 
         provides the text for a ritual in which the priest receives
the penitent before confession. The text was used as the preface to both the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Scriftboc</span> and the 
<span style="font-weight: bold;">OE Penitential</span>. It includes directions for observing the penitent's condition and asking
them about his or her understanding of the tenents of the faith. The  <span style="font-weight:
bold;">OE Introduction</span>
is composed of four parts: 
<ul style="list-style-type: none; padding-left:10px; font-size: 15px;">
  <li>1) a dialogue between priest and penitent;</li>
  <li>2) advice to the priest on the need to differentiate penances according to the culpability of
the sinner;</li>
  <li>3) instructions for telling the priest how to moderate penances according to the status of the
one 
  who confesses, specifying substitutions (e.g., for a week on bread and water, three hundred
psalms with genuflections, or three hundred and twenty without genuflection); and 
  </li>
<li>4) a list of the twelve remissions of sin.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
However, these four parts occur as a set in this order only once, before the <span
style="font-weight: bold;">Scriftboc</span>, and in only one manuscript, 
MS S (Corpus 190); the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OEI</span> has been translated
from this manuscript. In
the other manuscripts these parts occur in different patterns and combinations. In three
manuscripts (B, X, Y), one or two sections accompany the penitential tariffs either of the
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Scriftboc</span> or the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OE
Penitential</span>. But in MS N the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OEI</span>
follows parts of the
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Old English Handbook</span> and is not associated with a
tariff penitential, suggesting
that it fuctioned as a separate devotional ritual. </p>
<p>Given that no two manuscripts contain exactly the same form of this text, it is important not to generalize
from the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OEI</span> to Anglo-Saxon confessional practice. 
Readers should avoid assuming that one version is "correct" and others are
"incorrect." The version in MS S has been translated because it is the most complete; readers can
use it, with caution, to translate the other versions. But all the versions should be seen as having
equal manuscript standing, and the four-part verion is obviously the exception rather than the rule. Note also that sectins of the first part appear in the Salisbury Pontifical (see Ker, bibliography, below).</p>
<p>As its various forms suggest, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OEI</span> served various
functions, ranging from instruction to priests and penitents to prayer. For either
administrative or devotional purposes (that is, use by the priest or use by those who wished to
meditate in private prayer) evidently only parts of the Introduction were deemed necessary. In addition, both part 3 and part 4 
are found in second versions. See <a href="char4oei.html">Table 1</a>.
</p>
       <br/>

       <h3 style="font-size: 20pt; color: #626C9B; font-weight: bold; position: relative; top: -1em; letter-spacing: .10em; width: 100%; border-bottom: double 3px #626C9B; "><a name="manuscripts">Manuscripts</a></h3>


<p>The <span style="font-weight: bold;">OE Introduction</span> survives in five eleventh-century codices
(each is followed by its reference in the catalogues of Ker and Gneuss). <a href="char5oei.html">Table 2</a> shows how the 4 parts are distributed in the 5 manuscripts containing them. 
         <ul style="list-style-type: none;">
           <li>
             <span style="color: red;">
               B&nbsp;&nbsp; Brussels, Biblioth&egrave;que royale, 8558-63, s.
               xi&sup1;, southeastern (Ker 10; Gneuss 808);
             </span>
           </li>
           <li>
             <span style="color: red;">
               S&nbsp;&nbsp; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 190, Part B, pp.
               368-71; s. xi<sup>med</sup>, xi&sup2;, Exeter (Ker 45B, Gneuss 59); pp. 387-413
             </span>
           </li>
            <li>
              <span style="color: red;">
                Y&nbsp;&nbsp; London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii, s.
xi<sup>med</sup>, Canterbury, (Ker 186, art. g, Gneuss 363);
              </span>
            </li>

           <li>
            <span style="color: red;">
              X&nbsp;&nbsp; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121, s. xi&frac34;, 
              Worcester (Ker 338; Gneuss 644);
            </span>
            </li>
            <li>
              <span style="color: red;">
                Y&nbsp;&nbsp; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 482, s.
                xi<sup>med</sup>, Worcester (Ker 343; Gneuss 656).
              </span>
            </li>
         </ul>
       </p>
       <br/>

       <h3 style="font-size: 20pt; color: #626C9B; font-weight: bold; position: relative; top: -1em; letter-spacing: .10em; width: 100%; border-bottom: double 3px #626C9B; "><a name="date">Date and Sources</a></h3>
<p>The language of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OE Introduction</span> points to origins in Worcester in the second half of the
tenth century (Raith, p. v), although the text's sources go back to continental handbooks of the ninth century
as well as the first half of the tenth century. Some of the sources are easy to identify. The third and fourth sections are derived from the continental text known as the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Poenitentiale
Remense</span>, a version of the penitential of pseudo-Cummean. For Latin parallels, see
Wasserschleben, pp. 498-500, and for a detailed discussion of sources, see Spindler, pp. 126-69.
The other sections of the introduction are derived from the <foreign lang="lat">ordo
confessionis</foreign> accompanying one of the pseudo-Bede texts and, possibly, the
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Capitula of Theodolf</span>, but it is not clear which of these texts served as the immediate
source. This <a href="char3oei.html">table 3</a> lists Latin sources or parallels for the Introduction.
       </p>
       <br/>
       <h3 style="font-size: 20pt; color: #626C9B; font-weight: bold; position: relative; top: -1em; letter-spacing: .10em; width: 100%; border-bottom: double 3px #626C9B; ">Manuscript tables</h3>
       <p>
         Three tables are available to give you an overview of how the 
         <span style="font-weight: bold;">OE Introduction</span> 
         is arranged in each manuscript. <a href="char4oei.html">Table 1</a> shows the distribution of parts in the manuscripts. <a href="char5oei.html">Table 2</a>, more detailed, enables you to spot the differences in distribution of the parts in the manuscripts.  <a href="char3oei.html">Table 3</a> lists Latin sources or parallels for each part.  



     </div>
     <div id="header" style="border-top: double 3px lightyellow;"><h2 style="margin-right:
1.5em;"><a name="bib">Bibliography</a></h2></div>
     <div id="text">
       <p>
         

<p>Editions<lb>

<dir>Ker, N. R. "Three Old English Texts in a Salisbury Pontifical, Cotton Tiberius C.1," in Peter Clemoes, ed., <span style="font-style: italic;">The Anglo-Saxons: Studies . . . Presented to Bruce Dickins</span>. London, 1959. pp. 262-79.</dir>


         <dir>Logeman, H. "Anglo-Saxon Minora," <span style="font-style: italic;">Anglia</span> 12 (1889): 497-518.</dir>
         
         <dir>
         
           Raith, J., ed. 
           <span style="font-style: italic;">Die altenglische Version des Halitgar'schen Bussbuches
(sog. Poenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberti)</span>.
             Bibliothek der Angels&auml;chsischen Prosa
             13. Hamburg, 1933. Repr. with new introduction, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
             Buchgesselschaft, 1964. 
         </dir>

<dir>Spindler, R., ed.  <span style="font-style: italic;">Das altenglische Bussbuch (sog. Confessionale
Pseudo-Egberti)</span>.  Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1934. 
</dir>

<dir>Thorpe, Benjamin, ed. <span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Laws and Institutes of England</span>.  2 vols. 
London, 1840.  </dir>

<dir>Wasserschleben, F. W. H., ed. <span style="font-style: italic;">Die Bussordnungen der abendl&auml;ndischen
Kirche</span>. Halle, 1851; repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- U. Verlaganstalt, 1958.  </dir>
</p>
<p>Studies



<dir>Frantzen, Allen J.  <span style="font-style: italic;">The Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England</span>. 
New Brunswick, NJ:  Rutgers University Press, 1983. </dir>

<dir> &mdash;.  "The Tradition of Penitentials in Anglo-Saxon England," <span style="font-style: italic;">Anglo-Saxon
England</span> 11 (1983): 23-56.</dir>


</p>

<p>
03/09
</p>
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